It kills me everytime I hear this sort of thing, because a good 50% of my FRC team were the guys and galls who were aspiring to technical specialties or trades. Although someday in the future their jobs may become more mechanized, I doubt the human element will every be completely removed.
I really wish people could understand one simple point, and that is: if the machines can do easy manual labour, what is the next step? Simple, we make them better at it. Eventually they will get to the point of being able to engineer and discover things themselves... So really, if humans want to remain relevant at all, we will find a balance integrating humans and machines into jobs together. (I believe this point has been argued by more eloquant men than me since the start of the industrial revolution, so I encourage reading up on your dystopias [or just watching Terminator
])
The T in FIRST, technology is a very broad field, and I think we should include the technicians and tradespeople that make the way of the engineer possible in our envelope of inspiration.